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ADDRESS 

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5 BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES 



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K!.\ liKORGE .11 NKI.V, D. D : L.L.I) 



JU LY 1st, 1856. 



M.W YORK : 
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A D D RESS 



I'BUVEREO 



BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES 



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RUTGERS COLLEGE, 



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REV. GEORGE JUNKIN, D. D.: L.L.D. 



JULY 1st, 1856. 



NEW YORK : 

PRUDEN ft MARTIN, BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, 13 SPRUCE ST. 

1856. 



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P*ITHE880PHriH IIai.i. Julj 2d I ■ 

U 1>. L. I. D 

WtheSocietybepn rpHK J 

Ul '■' I highly int. 

of the 

Wl 7 TObm,tthe 

n-.jueu ..ft' -* le ' "'« 

M HERBER1 
PHILLIP BERRY, 

mittee 



M " ' ' ' H *« N| Hi .lipBbbbi 

, . 1 '" lM 7" 1 ' ,,,:, " ni " 1 P1 rorpublica- 

"ng to your flattering and compliment 

■ liverv 
within 

« audi 

I 
thrown b, 
now I talked an era men. 

perityandBuccewo/yon, 

' '- T" 1 for .,iiv. i pen 

V.'in humhle sei v.-mt, 

IDNKIN 



A [) I) 1! ESS. 



- : 
cal and an;i- 
to the ' Ire e to produce abso- 

- UK's! 

been vei 

i erified 
i i r the sun. 

] i I od be 

. i i « • ry i" 

nbranceoff! 

re He 

i church thai " the 

d Pan- 

i and 

again ren embered. . it is that 

' at which shall 

Tl I' van in his deep iv of 

" the true, the I "*:mt iJ": . h -ites a 

in th-- human mind, and thou I in the wine. 

in pudding trinil greal English 

philosopher, has only dug up tin- old a philosophy 

that had gone to >hep in th D \ id and Solomon. 

So the amateurs in tho tine arts, who have made the 



wonderful discovery, that the human mind is the origin- 
ator of beauty ; and the Creator of that mind is but 
the copyist from His own creatures' works, who seem to 
think that there is more beauty in the sculptured marble 
than in " the human form divine ;" who bow down before 
the daubings of Rubens and the chiselings of Michael 
Angelo, but see little or no beauty in the Lord and Maker 
of them all, that they should admire Him ; or in the living, 
•fully and wonderfully made originals, the productions 
of whose rude resemblance has immortalized the chisel of 
the one, and the pencil of the other. These amateurs 
have produced nothing new ; they have merely happened 
upon some fossil deposites of an ante-Roman, or, per- 
chance, an ante-deluvian age. The materialistic phi- 
losophy which formed the basis of the fine arts practised 
among the descendants of Tubal Cain, is reproduced by 
the same school in our own day : and the mystic philoso- 
phy of the Rhine, the Seine and the Cam, is but the an- 
cient Alpheus re-bubbling up his waters, not pure and 
limpid as of yore, but foul and foetid, from the fathomless 
fountains of a modern Arethusa. 

But, my respected audience, you are not to understand 
me as objecting to investigations in the fields of physical 
science. Far from it. Let the plowshare run deep ; let 
broad furrows roll over on all the vast plain, and throw 
up to the admiring gaze, exhaustless treasures hid in the 
sand. Let all her engines be called into requisition to 
draw up from the deep mines of nature the boundless treas- 
ures of old Plutus ; and let her suck the abundance of the 
seas ; but then, let her not lose sight of the God of nature, 
and Issacher-like bow down between her base burdens of 
e arthly matter. 

Noi dp wi obji ; - ilosophy — not al all. 



. -hI.il. 
upon h, but as she borrows il 

and the other from the grand original— the Creator of 
'"■ ' ' ; :iose 

ninus in 
atheism — I absurdities. Oh ! there is 

lius, 
John Randolph . who, when he !< 

! " '''' V i in 

1 

-re 
him.tui 

'John, i! 

•-■II him he I " I my heare hi- 

'P n y which ! [ghi in God, will 

1 am Alpha and < >mega." ! hi s 

is the only truth which < ; ts se ]f. 

■ 

ii. To i 

! me to a 
sun. 'I I 

short of the convicti mind. In- 

fini>< n pronounces the 

he is incapable o 

■ill tli.it man's mil forks 

of <; M Hence all i 

our conceptions an i ilways imperfect. 

had 
reall; -t. 



These remarks prepare the way lor one upon The 
History of European Civilization." It is a singular fact 
fha in the course of his very learned and fascinating, and 
really philosophical lectures on this topic, the author makes 
no mention of the Bible, nor-unless I am greatly rms- 
taken-any direct allusion to it, nor any precise and ex- 
press reference to Christianity as a spiritual religion: The 
fast is indeed brought forward as an element but only m 
its socio-political aspects; not as a system of heart-sancti- 
fying truths. This might be easily accounted for, had tne 
author been a Romanist ; but for a Protestant to write a 
history of European civilization with such an hiatus is 
passing strange. It is like a history of the American Re- 
volution with Washington left out. Two reasons how- 
ever, suggest themselves; the one from his political 
position, and the character of his auditory ; the other from 
his own religious character. 

But now, the omitted agency is the very one which a 
christian philosopher wishes above all to under stand-the 
influence of the Bible, and its literature in civilizing 
Europe The physico-social development and the intel- 
lectual, we have no objection to, but to omit the better half 
of the inner man, when he professes to treat him all— ah 1 
this abyss between Christ and human civilization, is it 
fixed and must it always be? Had the Bible nothing to 
do in civilizing modern Europe ? 

We admit gladly the great benefits to man, from the 
improvements in physics— the useful and the fine arts 
have been carried to a higher pitch of perfection where 
true religion was unknown; so intellectual culture, as 
contradistinguished from moral has run up. So it was in 
ancient times. Egypt and Babylon, Athens and old Rome 
were in these regards highly refined and civilized nations. 



9 

So modern Paris is the centre, according to M. Guizot — 
and the world assents to it — of refinement. Yet, never- 
theless, in tin' higher type <>f civilization — that which re- 
gards man as a [flora] and immortal intelligence — the 
ancient cities were infinitely behind christian cities of 
modern times. So Paris herself is at once the most 
barbarous and the most highly civilized city on the globe- 
In mere physical development she stands unrivalled — she 
rules the fashions of : ' e " orld. So, too, is it in regard to 
purely intellectual But thru her Ignorance and 

her atrocities within the sphere of the higher civilization 
are equally transcende t. fcfoi • brutal barbarism the 
sun never blushed at. than lias been enacted in her streets ; 
and at her unhalli ual nm\ other impurities the 

moon turns pale. We might very justly parody Pope's 
thrust at Bacon. 

■ w Paris Bhined, 
'• Tl ■ • lankind." 

Bui what 1 1. >w has an unchained Bible done for civiliza- 
This we ,rer with extreme brevity. Look 

at England. When the Bible w ee within her realm 

three hundred la population of three and 

a quarter millions, twenty sis — an increase of 

about eightfold. Francethen had twelve millions — now 
thirty six — an increase of tl Scotland, when she 

than three quarters of a 
million — now more than three millions. But numbers 
may not measure civilization. What then' was the moral 
and religious state - liberty? Liberty! 

Like the Bible, its revi der the feet of brutal 

tyranny. Where is sne now- I. ft •• the meteor flag of 
England," as il covers the free and the brave, flouts the 
pale blue sky. and reflects the light of yonder sun from 



10 

every mountain wave, and every clime under heaven's 
broad canopy, proclaim the response. Where there is no 
free Bible, how is the higher civilization, and where is 
liberty 1 Let the iron sceptre of despotism crush out tiie 
wailing response from the heart-broken millions of Italy, of 
Spain, of Austria, of Russia, yea, of beautiful France, of 
republican France. Oh ! the moral degradation of relig- 
ious bondage, even of civilized republican France : and 
what then is freedom of conscience in other parts of des- 
potic Europe 1 

But we must return a moment. Where is that rocky 
desolation upon which Julius Cassar found it impossible to 
winter a Roman Legion ? Where ! Britania, reversing 
the case of the fabled island of the poets, was first cut 

loose. 

" Delos, jam stabili revincta terra, 
Olim purpureo rnari natal)ant ( 
Et moto levis hinc et inde vento, 
Ibat fluctibus inquieta summis." 

But she did not long float unquiet o'er the summit 
waves, until a gracious Providence interposed, 

r os illam gerninis deus catenis, 
Hac alta Gyaro ligavit, iliac 
Constanti Mycono dedit tenendam." 

Now and forever she is bound by no fabled deity, but 
by the God of Heaven, not to two miserable barren rocks 
in the midst of that narrow pool, called the Mediterranean, 
but to a mighty continent, itself bounding and limiting the 
two mightiest oceans of the globe ; bound, not by two 
chains of iron, but by the everlasting bonds of a common 
Bible and a common blood. Yes, my friends, England 
has passed, not like Europa, across the Hellespont, on the 
back of a bull, but across the wide Atlantic, upon the 



11 

-?, long winged, full 

. and which took 

them i the Lord alone 

. them." 
And, ' the heicrUt 

I 
and I eai sr it shall 

dwell all of the 

rated 
•• to the 

in la 

■ 

» in all 

' e known 
on the coi to the -axon 

i land. 



12 

" Where no pent up Utica contracts our powers 
But the whole boundless continent is ours." 
Yes, " All hail ! thou noble land, 
Our fathers' native soil !" 

Thou art soon to comprehend only a mere fragment of 
the dominant race : whilst we shall swell, before the end 
of the present century, to a hundred and ten millions. 
Still we shall be one race, and have one Bible, and one 
civilization. 

" While the manners, while the arts 
That mould a nation's soul 
Still cling around our hearts, — 
Between let ocean roll, 
Our joint communion breaking with the sun ; 
Yet still from either beach, 
The voice of blood shall reach, 
More audible than speech, 
We are one !" 

Already, my friends, have I made a considerable ad- 
vance toward the heart of my subject, without a distinct 
communication of it, — 

OUR NATIONAL POSITION. 

Logically, in view of this vast theme, the questions 
would pour in upon us, thus : Where ? How ? When ? 
What ? Wherefore? Where am I? How came I hither f 
When came I ? What is my position ? Wherefore— for 
what wise ends 1 But this simple and natural order has 
been already violated in the onward flow of feeling, ra- 
ther than of thought : and as the second has been most 
largely anticipated, let us finish it first. 

How came we into our present national position ? The 
substance of the response is already in your possession ; — 
an unchained Bible — a free Bible enfranchised the souls 



13 

of our fathers from the bondage of sin, and kindled in 
them an intense desire to worship God in a "church with- 
out a bishop," and to serve man in " without a 
king." Startled at this heaven-generated and Bible-born 
doctrine, the giant despot of the world aroused all his 
agencies, and leagued them together to put out its light, 
and again to chain the Bible in his own den. Religious 
disabilities and Moody I our fathers from 
their ancestral hoi lony but the first was 
the direct result of this effort to chain down the word of 
God. This drove the woman into the wilderness, sym- 
bolically and literally. The IJible their une their 
chart across the Atlantic, and faith stood at the helm and 
guided evi shores. No won- 
der this nation lows the word of God. Eere they find 
their simple democratic re recalls 
it, the very element ot their political freedom. The 
fundamental docti notation lies at the 
both <■"• i and of their civil institutioi 

When came they hither 1 In !f>07 and lG'Jo. and at 
many other i until July 4th, "IQ, when they 

became a c cuttii ird po- 

litical which hound them to try. In 1*!") 

"in- naii —whan 

this life-ligatu bound the 

disjecta membra ii 

had no mi. 'lit, bu ncils and 

mittees. Now. by the 
cmm. the 
and moon e 

Where? I our nexl inquiry, and we may aii 
it geographically, fiscally, intellectually, morally and po- 
litically. To the first only, however, can we respond 



14 

without running into the next, and answering the What. 

Geographically, then, we stand betwixt two boundless 
oceans. Not like Israel of old, between a lake and a pond. 
Not like gigantic Russia, between an arm of a sea on the 
one hand, and a branch of a lake on the other. But we 
cover the vast temperate zone from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. "We have thousands of miles of coast, thrown 
open to face the commerce of all the world. In the other 
direction, from the regions of almost eternal snows, to the 
perpetual buddings of the tropical summer. Nor is it at 
all unlikely, that we shall be obliged, by the laws of char- 
ity, to throw the broad folds of the stars and stripes over 
the poverty-stricken and priest-cursed republics on our 
southern borders, simply to protect them from themselves 
and from suicide. Almost equally probable, though not so 
imminent, is the movement on our northern quarter, by 
which England, when feeling herself about to sink under 
the crushing weight of a despotic alliance just now begin- 
ning its formation, turning a wishful eye toward her first- 
born of colonies, will exclaim, " Save me, or I perish !" 
and will fling her American possessions, aye, and herself, 
too, into the arms of our protection. 

When that day shall come, — and come, I think, it will, 
and we shall have warned Russia off from the North-west 
coast, our boundary will be from pole to burning line. But 
let us contract the wings of our imagination ; let the eagle 
stir up her own nest, and flutter over her own young. Our 
actual territory, inclusive of its location mid oceans, gives 
us a national position hitherto unknown in the annals of 
the world. Rome, territorially, and otherwise the greatest, 
never had facilities for commerce ; for, until her later 
acquirements westward, just at the commencement of her 
decline, she was an inland nation. To the great oceans 



15 

■he was a Btranger. Navigation to her was a keel-boat 
sment ; c 'rail.' in small marketing. Our 

enarian Eagle Bpreada a wider win£ than Rome's ;it 
il hundred ! 
But this leads towards the " What '" and we had better 
let tin-; last c with the *' Where ;" tor our geogra- 

phical position has every thing to do with our fiscal powers 
— our physical — Agriculture, Manufactures, 

('"inn — we have, and in them, all exuber- 

: all climates, an. I by them all varieties of earth's 
all mineral--, from the almosl worthless 
• invaluable iron and coal ; ami in them the 
developing the unknown capacities 
producing the necessaries and the luxuries 
of lite. far indefinite increase of a laboring popula- 

tion. But the law here is well settled — population is di- 
the mea imfortable subsistence; bo thai 

our vast agricultural resources seem to remove t" an 
r . indefinate distance, the starvation boundary 
• population presses upon the means of Bubsis- 

depth of the soil and the depth of the mine 
. r< turies to come, who can measure 
tiie height of the '-011111111 agricultural which muf 

sted over them 1 And then, manufacturing industry, 
ami th power it generates are measureless as the 

C th y 1 the material upon which that 

must anticipate one de- 

•1 field. Our mechanical in- 
ple on the earth, or 
that have dwelt on it, at least since the great deluge, have 
d by indulgent heaven with so large a capital in 
1 r scientific power, embodied in our mechani- 
cal ingenuity is working mightily toward the redemp- 



16 

tion of man from the painfullness of that physical curse, "in 
the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." For all labor- 
saving machinery, from the spinning wheel to the rover, 
and the jenny of ten thousand spindles ; from the wheel- 
barrow to the iron horse, whose snortings are heard from 
Dan to Beersheba ; from the foot-pad with his mail pouch 
on his back, to the Morseum ; from the toothless reaping 
hook, to the wide swathed M'Cormick — all, all proclaim 
for labor, alleviation to its sorrows, and increase to its com- 
forts. By this power America is extending her dominion 
over man ; at this hour she is levying contributions upon 
ail kingdoms, and subsidizing all nations. The. Sublime 
Porte long since doffed his turban to the American ship- 
wright. The Czar of all the Russias sits tete-a-tete with 
an American Engineer. His Imperial Majesty of the 
Brazils buys American engineering talent at royal prices. 
Scientific France pays her most profound obeisance, as the 
American iron horse gulphs up the waters of the Seine, and 
thunders along in the suburbs of the civilized world. Even 
proud old mother England seems ashamed of her own very 
natural jealousy upon sight of her oldest daughter passing 
her in the race of improvement, and winning the applause 
of the nations ; and shows no fidgety nervousness at the 
thundering roar of American cars on English rails, or 
American lightning snapping into her ears intelligence 
from Paris or Vienna, Sevastopol or St. Petersburg. Why 
should the old lady be any longer jealous? Is not she like 
her daughter an iron nation ? Is not the Anglo-Saxon 
race an iron race ? Is it not by working as an artificer in 
this peculiarly Anglo-Saxon product, it has placed itself 
upon its lofty iron throne, as protector of humanity — as 
Guardian of the Liberties of the world ? Let then the 
Jew, with his financial talent dealing in gold, subsidize the 
nations ; but let America, with her mechanical talent work- 



17 

ing in iron, and the arts of peace, bind them in stronger 
and more enduring bonds. 

We have now erected another column, high and glori- 
ous, and are prepared to throw across the summits of these 
two, the triumphal arch of civilization — so far as physical 
improvement is embraced in it. Commerce, though often 
the occasion of war, belongs to the arts of peace. Our 
geographical position ensures to us the commerce of the 
world. No people ever had such facilities. The entire 
material for ship-building we produce within ourselves. 
The mechanical skill we possess is nowhere exceeded. 
Our natural harbours are everything, as to number, safety 
and position, that can be desired. Accordingly, despite 
the temporary check, and forced change of capital from 
commerce to manufactures along our northern seaboard, 
by the restrictive measure of Mr Jeffei D, soOn reviv- 
ed, and has kept steadily ahead ever since : so that in our 
eightieth year, we have the largest commercial marine in 
the world To this there is added the v.ist impulse of the 
Pacific trade, which, in a sense, it is impossible for us to 
avoid monopolizing, so threat are our advantages in that 
wide water over everything that ll >atfl What a vast px- 
pansivp arch! Its eastern segment butting against the 
Pvrenees and western Europe ; its western against the 
Himmalehs and eastern Asia ; its middle segment, which 
must be made of iron, cutting our mighty continent in 
two. whilst it binds it together! I- it conceivable that 
the United States will refuse <>r neglect to supply the iron 
key-stone to this stupendous ;ir<h. while she is an iron 
nation, and all her mountains full of iron and coal? No ! 
surelv such short-sighted policy eannot l<mg control such 
a far-seeing people. No ! America will complete the semi- 
circle. A work, not of such high national importance 
simplv, but of «uch depp concern to the wide world, will 



18 

not long stand unfinished, an object of jeering and scorn 
to our national imbecility. Oh no ! such dishonor does 
not await our loved and honored Union. I see already 
the crimson flush suffuse her cheek ; I see the big heart 
of the nation swell at the grand conception. She glances 
for a moment at the two grand pillars of the nation's 
physical and fiscal prosperity — Agriculture, Manufac- 
tures — the crowning arch of commerce, she sees almost 
complete, wanting — wanting only the vast iron key, to 
perfect its symmetry and secure its perpetuity ; she springs 
to her feet, and by one mighty effort drops in the crown- 
ing key ; and there it stands complete — agriculture, manu- 
factures and commerce, the grand triumphal arch, over 
which the nations, all must pass in their onward move- 
ment to the higher civilization. And there it will stand 
in its glory, when the triumphal monuments of Alexander 
and Hadrian, of Napoleon and Wellington shall have 
crumbled to dust. 

The old song that nature degenerates in the New World 
is now out of fashion. Alas ! fashions will change, and 
tailors, bonnet-makers and ballad-singers must change 
their stock or lose their change. There is now no Dr. 
Johnson to ask, " Who reads an American book ?" Poor 
Johnson ! he is himself shipped away into the dust of ages 
behind Noah's flood. Who reads an English Diction- 
ary ? 

But I may not enter the intellectual field in a belliger- 
ent attitude. The Gittite is dead, the Philistines have de- 
camped, and the glory of victory over such foes as remain, 
would not be w orth the smoke or the gas of the conflict. 
Oh, no ! The world admits that America has intellect — 
yea, even genius. And although by no means as fully de- 
veloped, as it is in some countries, and as is most highly 
desirable ; yet the intellect of the nation is more univer- 



19 

rally waked up. than that of any nation of ancient or 
modern times. This is the peculiarity of our intellectual 
position. In other lands and all ages, education has been 
u monopoly ; the idea of its universality was never enter- 
tained, and of course no effort was ever made to realize it 
Of consequence from this and the shortness of time since 
we became a nation, it must necessarily result, that many 
instances of superior intelligence must occur in the older 
nations. A. glance, however, at our educational systems 
must toon satisf) ever) thinking mind, that a very high 
position is in prospect for US. Literature, Science and the 
Arts, useful and Ornamental, are now cultivated by man) 
even enthusiastically. The highest and most important 
of the sciences— Theology, is cultivated more abundantly 
and ifully than in any country. Hut this leads to 

another distinct topic 

What is our position morally t The proper answer 
must be, on tli> Word of God. The nation's morality, as 
well as its religion professedly rests on this rock. We 

a divided people religiouslj as truly, and as really as 
we are in a civil Of political sense : ami precisely analo- 

, in practical fact, though not in < irganic form, is our con- 
dition in reference to the Bible, as to the constitution and 
the union. We are a united people in the great funda- 
mental principles ol religion and morality, and submit to 
the arbitrament ol the Bible: but where there are differ- 
ences ot interpretation, we have no grand tribunal — no in- 
fallible judge to decide between Beets. We just agree to 
differ. A consequence ol this perfect religious liberty and 
right ol private judgment is substantial agreement, with 
circumstantial diversity. Hence sects. Hut where the 
right of private judgment is denied and religious freedom 
l or bidden to man, there the) have circumstantial agree- 
ment and substantial diversity — agreement in ceremonies 



20 

and trifling observances, with utter disregard of funda- 
mental principles. Their unity is the union of knaves in 
the bond of hypocrisy ; our diversity is a diversity about 
trifles in the bonds of peace, love and truth. 

The sects, then, are our national peculiarity, but they 
are the guardianship of our truth, purity, safety and union : 
and woe to this land, when the sects pass away and all 
men agree in one religious creed. In the present state of 
the race, minute uniformity of doctrinal belief can result 
only from a want of thought, and can exist only by a uni- 
versal moral paralysis, or the coldness of a spiritual 
death. 

The idol of uniformity, indeed, haunted our fathers, af- 
ter their arrival upon these shores, although they had fled 
from the persecutions which the idol had stirred up. It 
required a century more to teach the important lesson, 
that now floats with our flag on the breezes of every clime 
— we are many ; we are one ! 

As our common law in state and church is based pro- 
fessedly on the Bible, we are accordingly a Sabbath-keep- 
ing people. This great national institution, placed in the 
universal statute book of nations, by the Creator of them 
all, is part of our national policy. A large amount of woe- 
ful desecration of the day of sacred rest, doubtless exists 
all over the land ; but still the truth is general, we are a 
Sabbath-keeping nation. This day of rest and moral and 
religious culture is recognized in all our legislation — State 
and national; and in all the great movements of all the gov- 
ernments and general habits, customs and observances of 
the people. 

A farther consequence of this freedom in religion, is 
our missionary character. Having long experienced the 
blessedness of a free Bible and a free mind ; having full 
knowledge of their effect in consolidating the foundations 



21 

of all our institutions — civil, political, literary, scientific, 
social, all — we have been awaked to a sense of their im- 
portance to other nations, and a desire to disseminate the 
glad tidings over all the earth. Our position relatively to 
(hem is one of thrilling interest in this behalf; and we 
have begun to feel our obligations. But I must reserve 
this thought for its proper place, and proceed to 

Our position political : and this as to internal and to 
external relations. 

Perhaps it is a nostrum, but your speaker has long felt 
it necessary to dissent from the theory of the individual 
man's solitary and insulated position by nature; and that 
thus viewed, he has his Largest liberty : that he voluntarily 
enters into a social compact — i. e. constitutes society ; and 
in so doing, yields some of his natural rights as a consider- 
ation for having the remainder better secured. 

On the contrary, 1 hold that society is, by bis Creator's 
act, the natural state of man. lie is born in society ; he 
lives in society, and he cannot live out of it. No man 
can expatriate himself from society without commiting 
suicide. Yea, more, that government, too, is an ordinance 
oj Qod, nut a device of human ingenuity. The form, in- 
deed, and the particular agency, 1. e. the ollicers of gov- 
ernment, God has left to the members of society to mould 
and appoint: but the thing itself — the great principles of 
law, and the necessity ol their application, and the power 
of government — all are of God ; there is no power but of 
God. Man surrenders no rights when he enters into so- 
ciety. At his entrance he is incapable, of it, he is a help- 
less infant, and has the right of protection and never can 
lose it but by forfeiture of life alter maturity. The right 
o( self-protection he never surrendered, but he assumes it, 
as soon as his powers for its exercise mature : and he can- 
not surrender it afterwards ; but if his own powers are not 



22 



adequate, he has the right of requisition upon society to aid 
him with all its force. Such, I suppose, are the teachings of 
the Bible and sound philosophy ; and on these principles 
rest our political institutions — our national and State gov- 
ernments. In the formation of these governments man had 
little to do, God did every thing. No created intellect laid 
the scheme of these republics ; the very men employed by 
their Originator to execute His divine and glorious plan, 
until very near its completion, had not even a dreamy 
conception of the work, as a whole, in which they them- 
selves were employed. The feller of timber in the soli- 
tudes of Lebanon, the driver of the ox-teams that dragged 
the logs to the sed, the raftmen that floated them to Tyre, 
the quarry-men, and the stone-cutters that squared the 
blocks and fitted them for their place— none of these had 
a clear knowledge of the glorious edifice for whose erec- 
tion they labored. Without such knowledge each perform- 
ed the part assigned him, and the better for his ignorance 
of the whole stupendous plan. So in the more glorious 
erection upon these western shores, man had a simple exe- 
cutive agency, and without him the work could not be 
carried on ; but the divine Architect alone saw the whole 
magnificent structure, and the relations of that whole. 
Be directed by His unerring eye, and aide-: by his own 
invisible hand, each workman, in his several location— the 
hewer of timber, the hewer of stone, the founder in brass 
and iron, the sculptor in wood, the goldbeater and the 
carpenter; and when each had accomplished and com- 
pleted his part, he guided every movement ; no clamor- 
ous clashing of weapons was heard, no war-mallet and 
battle-axe, but part came to his part, as if drawn by an 
invisible, yet invincible attraction ; and the glorious temple 
of liberty arose in all the gracefulness of her symmetry, 
the elegance of her proportions, the massive grandeur of 



23 

her strength, the unity of her design, the majestic subhm- 
ly of her engine! conception-E plur,bus mum ! And 
here she stands in the rery centreofthe world ; the joy of 
the whole earth. Behold her ! The eyes of the nations are 
fixed upon he, The exiled sons of freedom from all 
J;','™ lheir bleedi "S 'ooutep. toward her shrine. 
< rushed humanity directs its face toward her. and strains 
<s eyeballs ,o catch a ray of her glory, and sighs forth its 

' e " r S 'Vf & ''"' ">" communion ; where liberty 

dwell., oh I there be My home! 

Ye.O,.|l„u ,„i Z e.,s: this magnificent temple enshrines 
■he temporal hopes of bleeding, groaning humamtv The 
S,ber,an ev,le. and the R,,-s„„ ser f , he H„n can a„ and 
the Polish p.,„,,„. ,|,, Austrian and the German boor, have 

hear o American freedom, and do righ for its enjoyment. 

The light of her shekmah ha, p,.„o„afod the dark dun. 

peons of the mquisition. and thrilled the bosom of many a 

CopenuetKaSylrioPelicoanU Madiai 

.\V.„. n» ,n,„ds north and s„u.h-friends of freedom, 

all. Shan ,,.< glorou. Temple of Liber.v_,his chef* 

vuvreot the Almighte Arch,,,,,, , h ,s antral attraction of 

ZZ "t T;-"~ SkM " * *« ""wn and torn to 

■"° mS ., , nd ,ke • "'" Bartife, by the deluded and 

misgu, ed fnends of Liberty I Shell ,| 10 stars and stripe, 
which bear your commerce and your thunder in triumph 
over the «,,, „r ,|| „„. „ <t . a , 1 s. i „„| lloat in sub| ,. me J 
jesty over yon magnificent temple, be trampled m the 
mire, and torn m.o nhl.„„s. !in(i wnrn in derjsion beside 

he stars and garters of . titled despotism, in all the en- 
^ved , u ha , , No , 

must be preserved '" »u«ii, u 

I knew ye would say so. NU d^perandum de repute- 
••' The n , aster idea in an American head uVmcn. The 
domman, feelm, i„ even- American heart is U«-, M * nd 



24 



never, since our Joshua, on the bank of the Jordan, was in- 
augurated before the angel of the Lord, has the glorious 
idea of Union sunk deeper into the American heart, than 
now, in this very distracted hour. Why! it is the very 
depth and strength of this feeling, which everywhere gene- 
rates this prurient anxiety and trembling apprehension 
about dissolution. Away, then, with this unhallowed hal- 
lucination ! Who wants to dissolve the union? Who? 
Who I in all the land does not repel the insinuation against 
himself as a charge of treason? What party does not re- 
pel it and if brought, hurl it back upon the other as the 
very charge of blackest crime? Oh no! away with this 
foolish idea ! « The Union, it must be preserved. This 
is not an open question. The American mind and heart 
cannot and will not discuss it. We are divided, yet One 
This is our unique character. This is God s revelation to 
America. Revolutionary France had it not, and on the 
rock of this ignorance her noble vessel split and her flag, 
"one and indivisible," went down in a sea of bloody She 
sowed dragons' teeth, and she reaped monsters. On the 
contrary we are M A Nv-we are onk. We have union 
without consolidation ; central power without centralism ; 
a centripetal force, with an exact balance of a projectile 
impulse ; a sun around which 13 planets at first revolved, 
without each disturbing the other, or all the central ruling 
body • but now the 3 and the 1 have interchanged, and 
we nave thirty-one planets in the same zodiac all moving 
on in their several orbits, and keeping up a perfect balance 
without senous perturbations. Such new ones as may 
V et be hurled forth as tangents to the great W°W» 
some little time in tracing out their true path; but the 
laws of attractive and repulsive power, are unalterable as 
their <m>at Author; and these, too, cannot be left to 
roam long in the wide zodiac A few revolutions will 



25 

bring them to pontion, as our military friends say, and 
whether little and hot, like planets near the sun, or large 
and cool, they will roll on in their appointed spheres, with 
all their companions, great and small. 

" Forever sinking as they shine, 
The hand that nude us is divine." 

Our position in regard to the rest of the world is 
that of one family to another. Families can live near to 
each other in bonds of peace and friendship, but they 
cannot so live in the same house, commingling together. 
So national peace and commercial harmony require 
segregation and seclusion, hut not morose non-inter- 
course. Two circumstances render close and entangling 
alliances unnecessary ly avoidable : one has been 

mentioned. Our vast expanse and consequent variety of 
soil, climate and production, renders it almost unnecessary 
'\ such alliances even for commercial purposes. 
U ' ,;it family : but, moreover, divided into great 

'•"'. that ..ur family commerce, within our own 

lines— especially if the third -rent segment of the arch 
were completed— exceeds our foreign, both in magnitude 
and value : we are a family of nations at home. 

The other is the circumstance mentioned in "Washing- 
ton's legacy. •• < >ur del | and distant situation invites 
and enables us to pursue a different course"— from foreign 
alliances. Ours is a system Oopernican, complete within 
itself, and need not disturb and conflict with others. And 
it. as we have seen, without any unkind intermeddling, we 
y and do subsidize the nations by our mechanical gen- 
ius and other intellectual powers, much more may we and 
do we operate an analogous influence for good "upon the 
political destinies of the world. We have not been sent 



26 

on a crusade of destruction like the Israelites into Canaan. 
Ours is a mission of mercy. Ours is a " masterly inac- 
tivity" — " stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord." 
Or as Isaiah says, " Their strength is to sit still.'' Let our 
shekinah loom forth upon the nations from our temple of 
Liberty, and it will guide their feet through the Red sea 
of many a bloody revolution, and the sands of many an 
howling desert to the peaceful Canaan of the brave and the 
free. 

These remarks run us on from the " what" — to the 
"wherefore !" The reasons for which we occupy this po- 
sition ; the obligations of it are various. Why has God 
given us such boundless fiscal resources'? Why has He 
held us up a spectacle to the world's gaze — a mighty na- 
tion with a most efficient executive government, without 
any national debt, and burdened only with the puzzling 
question about the disposal of her surplus revenue ; and 
all this, too, when she is only beginning to develop her 
resources. 

And then our intellectual energies, our moral and religi- 
ous life; our political powers ; what do all these call for? 
Can these ten talents be designed as a deposit in the cold 
earth ! Duties, then, great and solemn be upon us. Only 
a few dare we delay to touch. 

Morally, we are destined to teach the nations a pure re- 
ligion. This covers all our vast missionary field. Ameri- 
ca can put a Bible in every family on the globe, and an 
Expositor of it in every thousand of earth's teeming popu- 
lation. Let every American christian look at the facts, 
make his own calculations, and do his own duty : then 
let him look up for the approximating millenial day. This 
is our work : w T e are the most competent to it, and the 
fittest for it of all the nations. Thb Bible made us what 
we are, and we are bound to make it appear to the nations 



27 



;;; l ; :,l i . it -■ T •*»». as imjaoTei bv its con 

.« field whore king, 
king, and '»°*>Pl>e«. who have ignored 

mn ...,:,,, I co mmo ,,se„se. 

Vorth Briton, 

> *"««.»" essa^aarameanMo 

, « !7* 

ourB 

ah v are swept 
.1 fa ii,.. i i Ji'suce become 

pnuosoplij ol com- 

must ,„en 

barii theisticbar- 

n; and ye. 

hell! " ns ': 

W-the great 
the war will ' who carries on 



28 

ritory, there is no grave for Protestant corpses. Our 
duty is to pass the spear-point of truth through the heart 
of the dragon. Of this he seems to have a presentiment 
and therefore is most industriously disgorging his legions 
on our shores, and with an adroitness peculiar, almost to 
Jesuitism, induces us to build alms-houses, and other places 
of refuge for the minor children, that their fathers may be 
the more free to fight for their masters at Rome and Vienna. 

Our national position, according to the prophecy of 
Washington, has so enhanced our power, that despotism 
while with dropped head and grinning teeth, and glaring 
eyeballs, it chafes intense desire to spring upon us with 
hyena ferocity, yet quails and skulks away into the dark 
dens of its inquisitions, on the one hand, and its lager beer 
shops, and gay saloons on the other. Open attack is 
hopeless, therefore the policy — divide and conquer. Hence 
despotism — diabolus incarnate, is wielding these two op- 
posite interests for the accomplishment of one end — ut- 
ter infidelity and stupid credulity — atheism and papism — 
lager beer and Falernian wine, no matter what, if only 
the American people can be so intoxicated that the house 
shall divide against itself, and so fall, and become an easy 
prey to the grand enemy. 

Thus: 

" Devil with Devil damned, 
Firm concord holds" — if perchance 

they can only induce freemen to disagree and "live in 
hatred, enmity and strife," if only the union can be dis- 
solved, and the hope of freedom to man, be abolished for 
ever. 

You perceive at once, my fellow citizens, that the wise 
and prudent policy of even the American Fabius becomes 
thus unavailing. In vain does Washington exclaim, " why 



29 

forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? why 
quit our own, to stand on foreign ground I why, by in- 
terweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, 
entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European 
ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?" True! 
very true, and wisely uttered, thou venerated Father of a 
nation. But then Europe will not suffer us to abide thus 
in our own far-off home by ourselves. Despotism has dis- 
gorged her millions, and brought this battle to our gates. 
Do you not hear the thunder of her artillery battering up- 
on the walls of our union ' " I divide and conquer," in mad- 
dened yell hursts forth the watch-word from one wing of 
this assaulting host ; in deafening shout from the other 
it reverberates, "Divide and conquer."' 

my friends, this war is brought to our doors: these 
battles of popery and atheism against liberty must be fought 
by American theologians, and American metaphysicians; 
and these bloodless battles must be fought in the joint use of 
the Word of God and the reason of man. 

Pars of the Lord and of Liberty over, and the 
hostile legions abashed and driven from the walls of our 
citadel; what will our position be ? and our duty I One 
hundred millions of freemen, spread over a mighty conti- 
nent, with a commercial and martial marine whose eagle 
wings darken all the billows of all the seas: with an agri- 
culture and a mechanism firm as the pillars of our ever- 
lasting hills: with a militia, the true geng-cFarmt of free- 
dom — over ten millions : with <^even thousand miles of 
coast facing all the oceans, indented all along with harbors 
and bristling with batteries, and breasts ready to man 
them; and with a Washington — if, indeed, among a hun- 
dred millions we can find him — at the head of a govern- 
ment, the most energetic, though not the quickest conceiv- 
able. From such a body politic, with gigantic skeleton of 



30 

huge granite mountains, with veins and arteries of vast 
rivers and railroads, and all under the control of electric 
nerves, terminating in the central deposit of life, what may 
not the world expect ? What ought to be her doings in the 
eyes of humanity? What does God, who placed us in 
this position, expect of us? 

I answer, besides the duties already enumerated, to be 
Atlantic and Pacific, like our own mighty oceans — to 
bear upon our shoulders the political heavens, and to quiet 
down the commotions of a sin-agitated earth. The bal- 
ance of power over the civilized world will then be in our 
hands. Even now, the opinion of America is a notable 
element in the deliberations of parliaments and cabinet 
councils, the world over : then no great question will be 
decided among the nations, without our advice and con- 
sent. Toward the great Republic will all eyes turn before 
any modification of international law will be determined 
on. American diplomatists will be of the quorum, when- 
ever a congress of nations shall sit upon the destinies of 
humanity. Should it ever be otherwise, and should com- 
binations of kingdoms be formed to crush out pure Chris- 
tianity, and the liberty which it generates, a note from 
some future Milton, under the direction of some future 
Cromwell at the head of the republic, will arrest the sail- 
ing of fleets, and the march of armies. 

But now, my friends, this responsible, glorious, and 
proud national position, present and prospective, depends 
absolutely upon the preservation of our National Union. 
That gone, the depth of our misery, degradation and dishon- 
or, will be measured by the present height of our felicity, 
grandeur and glory. 

For thirty years our national position, relative to the 
African race, has appeared to me the grand providential 
problem of the nineteenth century. God is working out 



31 

its solution, and glorious will be the result— and the time of 
tli.- end is near. Through the follies, crimes and cruelties 
of Spain, Holland, Portugal. Franco, England and Amer- 
ica there have been thrown upon this continent, three mil- 
lions of the race whom God hath painted black and 
jht hither. Why did I tod bring them ! Had He no 
i le work by guess ' [f this is blas- 
eray, whj He the African to these shores ? 

exponent infallible of His 
qs. "What hath God wrought?" He hath chris- 
tian three millions of His sable sons. A 
ir and a holier Christianity pervades this mass, than 

i globe, e :cept in 
Britain a ; [e has v 'w well as chris- 

tian!/ > hundred and thirty- erpor- 

than have been civiliz id and chris- 
tlaili/ all churches in all the world for 

the last thousand years. These are facts of history, 
verita , i ,,., ., lV section of her 

rude and coarse: yes. but it 

■n than that of Trance: it fits man, 

nd refine- 
where 
• upt-hear <; c power may soon be 

rrupt and despotically inclined 
■ glories and refinements of 
tl 'c N . ..I.cre he shall stand in bright array 

washed white in the blood of 
- the coronation of the King of 

Kir_ 

• 

A\ hat, then, does Cod mean to do with this Africo-Amer- 
ican i equal in number to the Israelites when they 

to the American Colonies when 
they crossed the lied Sea of revolution in "76? What will He 



34 

stupenduous and benevolent a work, it would create an 
emulation between the extremes of our American Empire, 
whose thrilling energies in the cause of humanity and of 
God, must reinstate in its own masterly power, the great 
and glorious characteristic — we are many, we are one. 

And now, young gentlemen of the Peithessophian and 
of the Philoclean Societies, my engagement has been met ; 
my work here is done. I have occupied too much time — 
too much for my capacity — but my heart was full, and 
none of you will say I have consumed too much time for 
the grandeur of my theme. You, young and educated 
men of this glorious Union! You must do the rest. Into 
your hands is the God of heaven just about to commit the 
Trusteeship of the world's redemption. Gird up the loins 
of your minds, and face the responsibilities of our Nation- 
al Position. Dare, in the sight of high heaven, to do 
your duty, faithfully and fearlessly. Never despair con- 
cerning the republic. Remember, that whilst there were 
many synagogues in Israel, there was but one ark and one 
Temple. So shall peace, prosperity and happiness con- 
tinue to spread all over this vast continent, and high o'er 
mountain crag, and briny billow shall continue to wave in 
elegant simplicity, in unclouded glory, and with untarnish- 
ed honor, the eagle banner of our glorious American 
Union ! 



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